Here’s what the doom loop looks like; you get to work and your normally friendly boss doesn’t say hi to you. You are sure that they don’t like you anymore so you go to your office and obsess about it all day. Your good friend hasn’t returned your call in two days and you are quite sure that she likes others more than she likes you so you decide to end your friendship. Your child gets a bad grade in school and you are positive that they did so to spite you after an argument over their homework so you start another argument with them after school. Your spouse walks in the door with an upset look on his face and you snap at him for not caring about you and then the two of you don’t speak for the rest of the evening.
Do any of these stories sound familiar? We all do it to some extent yet it really isn’t a very healthy or happy way to live. When we interpret others behavior as something negative about us and we do so without checking in with them, we are headed down a truly miserable doom loop. Is that really how you want your relationships to go? More importantly, do you want to spend most of your time feeling hurt and outraged at the behavior of others?
Rarely are people intentionally trying to hurt or ignore us.
Rarely are people intentionally trying to hurt or ignore us so why do we want to interpret their behavior in that way? Wouldn’t it be better to assume the best or at least check in with the person to see if their behavior is related to you? What if at the end of a day that you spent obsessing about your boss, she says to you, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t friendly today. I was having a rough day with one of my kids?” Would you be glad that you wasted your whole day feeling insecure and snubbed when you boss’s behavior didn’t have a thing to do with you?
Watch for signs that you might be doing this and then check in with yourself by asking, “Do I know this is true? If not, how can I find out?” Don’t spend a perfectly lovely day by focusing on someone else’s behavior that most likely has very little to do with you. Get out of the doom loop and into a more optimistic frame of mind, one that keeps you from feeling insecure and defensive.
Let me know how it’s going for you. Sometime this can be really hard for us to realize and to change. Good luck!
Love,
Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC